Reptilia · Squamata
Epicrates cenchriaLinnaeus, 1758
Rainbow Boa
Photograph by No machine-readable author provided. KaroH assumed (based…, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A burrowing, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Neotropic region, reaching 220 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Boidae › Epicrates
- Grows to
- 2200mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 31years
Longer than 75% of all boas anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 109 to 6,700 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
42 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2013
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 31years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1640mm5 ft 5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 1511mm4 ft 11 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2200mm7 ft 3 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 1800mm5 ft 11 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 462.5mm18 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 2657.1g5.9 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 1306g2.9 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 1350g3 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 23.8g0.84 oz
2200 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), max 1920 total length (Paredes-Casas et al. 2021), max TL 2 m (Reed 2005), Murphy et al. 1978 (1 female 1800 mm, I think this is TL given what Murphy et al. 1978 usualy reports though for once he does not say; neonate TL 435-490, mean 464 mm, mass 26.0-29.5, mean 28.1 mm), Pizzatto and Marques 2007 (female SVL 1510.5 ± 88.4 range 1420-1640, N = 35; males 1466.1 ± 216.0 range 946-1630, N = 48)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Mixed
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Fossorial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2750m
- Range size
- 9,438,617km²
carnivore (see Pinto‐Coelho et al. 2021, Paredes-Casas et al. 2021 - also a vampire bat!)
Glaudas et al. 2019
(O'Shea 2018, da Frota et al. 2021), nocturnal and crepuscular (Trujillo 2015)
(Pinto‐Coelho et al. 2021), terrestrial (da Frota et al. 2021 - who don't have a fossorial category)
0-2750 (O'Shea 2018), 0-900 (Señaris & Rojas-Runjaic 2020), 20-500 in Colombia (Paredes-Casas et al. 2021), max 1400 (Reed 2005)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 13.1eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 6–28eggs
- Mean clutch
- 13.1eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
Feldman et al. 2015
mean 13.1 (Meiri et al. 2019), 6-28 (O'Shea 2018), 6-20 (Paredes-Casas et al. 2021), 10 (Garcia and de Almeida‐Santos 2021, n = 1), max 20 (Reed 2005), 18 (Murphy et al. 1978, n = 1), Pizzatto and Marques 2007 (8-25, mean 13.1)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Suriname
Keeping one
7 ft 3 in × 3 ft 7 in × 5 ft 5 in(220 × 110 × 165 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 3 ft 7 in (110 cm) deep.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 1 × 0.5 × 0.75.
Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own total length of 7 ft 3 in (2200 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Rainbow Boa. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
A prey item should be between the same width as the widest part of the snake's body and about 1.5 times that width.
Widely used across snake husbandry references. An alternative formulation gives prey at 10-15% of the snake's body mass. This is established practice, not a measurement.
217kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 2,657 g, the heaviest recorded for Rainbow Boa — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
Morphs
0 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 3 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
What each pairing produces → · Two genes at once →
- Hypomelanisticbreeder consensus
Black reduced, so the reds and oranges brighten and the ringed pattern softens.
- Leucisticbreeder consensus
White or near-white with dark eyes, the ringed pattern lost entirely.
- Red intensitybreeder consensus
How deep the ground colour is and how boldly the rings show. Selected over generations rather than carried by one gene.
Worth knowing. The iridescence this species is named for is not a colour at all: it is the structure of the scales splitting light, so it shows on every rainbow boa including the pale ones, and it cannot be bred for or away.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches in a year
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Boidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Epicrates cenchria. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/epicrates-cenchria
@misc{epicrates_cenchria_2026,
title = {Epicrates cenchria},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/epicrates-cenchria}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.